Oh my god I thought this would only be like 2000 words. I WAS WRONG.
Yeah, this thing is 5,000 words, written today, and I don't know where all that came from. Somehow, Johana and Lancer really put words on the page or something. They start talking, and then BAM! I've got thousand of words to deal with.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy! And keep in mind that the latter parts of it contain some elements that may be disturbing to some readers.
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Invocation the 7th
They knew exactly where they were going: the Key Bridge, between Washington and Arlington, and one of the major arteries of the region. If anyone was going to go between the two cities, then more than likely they would head through the most convenient spot. Yet, with high potential traffic through the area, Johana knew there were problems, especially if there were others who had created strategies similar to hers.
The bridge itself loomed in the darkness, old and made of stone but still standing, and still a major part of life in the area. A few lampposts were lit along the edges of the bridge, just enough to light up its surface but little more; the waters of the Potomac could be heard, but there wasn't enough light for them to be seen: the moon, normally casting its sheen across the two cities, was covered in patchwork clouds, and that made this the perfect night.
Johana and Lancer slipped down from the surface of the Key Bridge to the shore on the Washington side. They hid themselves under the structure, basking in its heavy shadow where no one could notice them.
Nodding to her Servant, Johana stared up above, checking for any sign of a person passing by. He would use his keen senses to hear the clack of footsteps, and she would use her trained eyes to spot any dangers or any movement from on the bridge. If someone passed along the pedestrian sidewalk beside the lampposts, the light of those lampposts would be obscured just slightly and for just a moment, but it was a clear, direct sign that something too large to be a fluttering bird had passed by on the bridge. Then, they would strike, moving immediately.
Holding her breath, the silence was great enough for Johana to be able to hear her heartbeat, and the very light crunch of dirt beneath her feet. She stood completely motionless, her knees bent a little, her posture tense. Anything could happen, be it within minutes, or within hours.
Her heart beat, and beat, and beat, like a clock marking down the seconds.
Lancer silently tapped her on the shoulder, and nodded upwards. A shadow passed along the light from above, and Johana held tightly onto her Servant's arm.
He leapt up right to the edge of the railing with a flutter of wind, and his hands grasped the stone handholds there, Johana almost on his back. He heaved himself over, not even letting a grunt of exertion escape his lips. He was working at full functionality, and he swore to himself that he would not fail tonight.
This was a dangerous place to fight; even in the dark it was a common place for cars and pedestrians to pass by, but the battlefield had been chosen, and Johana was ready to kill, because she knew it would be a choice between this person's life, or her own.
Right ahead, his back to Washington, was a man walking along like any other. Johana stared at him curiously for a moment, a soundless clash of sparking light appearing in her hand. The moment she'd been waiting so long for had come, and she closed her eyes, revelling in the moment. Just a few seconds, she told herself, and this would be over. This Master would be dead, and if they weren't a Master, then they would be a potential witness gone. Either one was a victory for Johana, as either one aided her personal goals.
But, if this was a Master – Johana's mind was racing, and she glanced to the side. If this was a Master, then they were being too calm. No one who was invited into this war would just walk along the bridge. There was more to this, she knew, and she felt the suspicion like a whisper on the wind, making her shiver.
Something was wrong.
Lancer jumped in front of his Master, his spear held in both hands, kept sideways. A blast of rippling force from one movement of his weapon deflected back a heavy iron shot, and then another; he spared only a moment to glance back at Johana, who understood the situation all too well right then. The night was lit up by orange flares, the flash of cannon fire, and the solid timber of a ship was in full view to their right.
This Master wasn't a fool, nor were they overconfident. They had suspected something like this since the beginning, and it was Johana who had been ambushed.
Then, the whole bridge shook, and Johana barely managed to steady herself. Lancer was near, protecting her, but he was several metres away now, too far at that one moment to offer any help to his Master.
The bulk of the ship tore through the Key Bridge, the stone cracking loudly and violently like wood, bricks crumbling into the Potomac with a flurry of splashes. Without adequate supports, the slab of masonry Johana stood on heaved with the tearing impact of the great ship, snapping off and sliding slowly into the river as if its stony fingers were still barely holding on to the rest of the bridge. But, with another pounding from the cannons and with the ship clear of the bridge itself, Johana and the broken chunk of rock fell.
Her leg twisted, forced under the weight of the collapsing rock, and she decided that a broken limb was worth the price of avoiding a sure descent into the river. The sound of guns firing so close by made her ears ring, the blaring sound all that she could comprehend as events rushed by her like the cascade of rock all about.
An iron shot whistled past her, splashing into the river. It was almost too close.
She kept her poise for just a moment on the section of bridge, and leaned towards the remaining, stable half, her hands searching for a grip as she stumbled forward, unable to keep herself balanced forever as she fell.
The thunderous cannons sounded once more, a few shots breaking the bridge more with each hit, soundly bashing into the stone. Johana held on with one hand, her fingers slipping on the wet stonework, and she checked over her shoulder for as long as she could manage. Before this was over, she would have to assure herself of one thing.
Craning her neck about, she saw the figure of the Master, his body draped in a white raincoat; he raised one hand and was consumed by a dull flash of fire, and a wave of smoke that passed across the remaining parts of the bridge. Johana scowled at him, equally as angry at herself for falling to such a trap.
The destruction was unparalleled, and Johana lost all feeling in her arm as shrapnel from a near miss sliced a neat, deep gash in her elbow. Water engulfed her before she could see the blood.
Her whole body was consumed by the murky river water, and she opened her eyes in hopes of being able to see anything. She didn't know how deep the river could be, but her feet weren't touching silt or river plants, so she could only assume that there were many more feet to go before she reached the bottom. Her body urged her to breathe, to find air, but she could hardly move. Looking around revealed nothing but darkness, the water having no illumination. With her whole body submerged, no spells could be cast, and the average magus would be sunk there under the piles of debris still falling into the river.
Johana knew that she was no ordinary magus; her family's very heritage was to be unusual.
The water was freezing farther than the surface, so cold that it was like ice rushing past Johana's numbed skin, grating at her flesh. But it was also in her nature to resist that same cold, and all the determination she'd known in her life welled up at once.
A silvery, glowing aura surrounded Johana as she sunk, and all physical sensations ceased, as though she was cut off from the world itself. Her grey eyes opened wide, tinged with a new power, and the flow of the river became choppy, and slow. One by one, drops of liquid became solid beneath Johana's feet, latching together into a solid lattice of pure white ice, smooth as fashioned marble. In the muddy river, the platform of crystal floated up, Johana standing atop it like solid, weighted ground, her whole body accustomed to the motion.
There was a trickle of water all down her body as she finally reached the surface, and the ice coated farther along the river, directed by Johana's will. Flecks of frozen water attached themselves to her soaked hair and skin, and her breath was so cold that it came out in visible white clouds like smoke out her mouth. She kept her composure, and stood tall on her feet.
Her shoes clacked along the ice, and cracks showed in the structure behind her, the platform breaking apart as she no longer needed it. She gritted her teeth and bore the pain of her leg, and her arm was wholly unresponsive.
She didn't care. So long as she wasn't dead, she would keep on fighting.
Blood and water mixed together in her hair and on her skin, making her look like a pale, walking corpse, a sickly image of a human being. Yet, there was something inherently breathtaking about her, a change in her appearance or just an effect that her presence had, and with cool confidence she made her way to the shore of Washington on her packs of polished ice.
When she collapsed on one knee by the riverbank, Lancer was at her side in moments; the great, black ship was nowhere in sight.
“Master! I held the enemy Servant at bay, but you took injuries in pursuit of his Master?” Examining Johana, Lancer held his hands on her leg, feeling the spike of bone protruding through her flesh, splintered apart in her struggle on the bridge. Johana clearly winced at the touch, but didn't let it bother her while her Servant ran energy through the broken limb.
Like a time-lapse, the bones knit back together, and Johana let out a breath. “I... can hardly say I did, Lancer. It was a clear ambush: the Master was the bait, and we took it, and his Servant was meant to incapacitate or kill me.”
“Almost exactly what we were planning to do.” Lancer muttered, gently picking Johana up in both arms. The gash in her elbow was smoothed over with a touch from Lancer, and he sighed.
Johana shook her head. “I fear that was the same Servant that caused the fire we saw before. The ship he rode caught flame from a foe he misjudged, and just like us he worked with his Master and created a new strategy. He may even have been spying on us when we were trying to ambush Masters on the island. They're... quite well-informed, I have to say.”
Lancer nodded, carrying his Master up to the height of the bridge, close to the road. “With any luck, I think, those two should be killed by another Servant and Master.”
“Did you fight the Servant himself?” Johana tried standing up on the grass, but her body was too pained to try to move. She stared up at her Servant, who glanced around them before speaking. Even in the night, there could be others watching, and listening.
“I did.” Lancer's voice was low, his eyes narrowed. “He was no match for me, but... his ship could rock itself to the side with an effort of the Servant's will, and the man had an aura of dread about him. He would have less of an effect on most Servants, but judging by the sheer power of his presence, the horror he exuded could make a human go catatonic.”
Disappointed again with their progress so far, Johana grasped Lancer's hand, letting him help her to her feet. She wasn't in the best condition physically, but her mind was now sharp and she was ready to deal with any incoming threat.
“At least we have some information on our prime enemy. That makes two so far, including the Soviet Master from the first night we fought.”
A frown in his face, Lancer crossed his arms. “And that makes two near-death experiences for you, my Master. How are you feeling?”
She laughed at her Servant's ridiculous question. “How am I feeling, Lancer?” She stretched her arms out, letting the joints all crack, a wry grin coming to her face. “I feel most alive when I come face-to-face with death. The rush of adrenaline make my normally unresponsive body a quick and deadly machine, and I have to say that by now, my body is used to being pushed past whatever limits it might have. A little taste of my own mortality makes for a wonderful motivator. Fortunately I'm rather bad at actually dying, or so I've found.”
Lancer shook his head, staying close to his Master to make sure she had support in case her body gave out again. “If you get yourself torn apart so often, then you can only end this disabled, at best. You have to respect your body more, Master. It is far more than a tool for your own ends.”
“Lancer, the human body is only the receptacle for the soul, and for the mind. You yourself should know that, being a spirit whose natural body died long ago.” She raised a hand to her chin, thinking for a short few moments. “But, if you want to have this discussion, can we talk later? The night is hardly young anymore, and we have to improve our results. Three days have passed, and no opponents have been eliminated. We've been taking risks, yet there has been nothing to reward us as of late. So, we have to plan, and we have to take action.”
“As you wish, my Master.” Lancer gave a quick nod, staying right beside Johana as she crested the small hill back to the road that lead to Georgetown. The bridge was behind them, ans so was that deadly night, with Johana's body operating just as she wished it to. She smiled, ready to be back in the fray.
Her senses were still sharp, then, and the lightest sound from the road to their left caught her attention immediately. It was just like the thud of the Master's shoes on the stones of the bridge.
Johana held out her arm, stopping Lancer. She wanted to investigate this for herself.
Her eyes narrowed, she called out into the night, “Who are you, pedestrian?” She took a menacing step forward, the air gaining a sudden chill.
Just as she thought, she could smell the fear of this person, sensing that they were second from turning about and running. They were close enough that they could have heard. They were close enough that they could have seen. They were close enough to see the bedraggled, bloody woman striding towards them in the dark, eyes glowing like the moon on a less cloudy night. Just like the Servant Lancer mentioned, who could send a man into shock just by standing near, Johana had a ghastly presence, her mind all focused on this one onlooker.
She didn't quite care if they were a threat, but she did carry some suspicion that they, or any normal person about, might have seen her, or seen the action of the night.
Perhaps a small voice in her mind told her at that moment to kill. It was ingrained in her psyche, the fascination with death. She couldn't shake it off, nor did she want to. It was a perverse desire, the desire to see someone lying dead before her, to steal their life away while they could do nothing but cry out with unheard screams.
There was only the slightest sound as Johana's iron sword appeared in her hand, and she picked up her stride, almost breaking into a run. She could see the person's mouth opening, about to yell something in English. She wouldn't comprehend it herself, but she knew by human nature that it would be a desperate plea for help. The idea that help would never come, that this one human's death was inevitable, made Johana's whole body shiver.
The length of her sword through their chest silenced the person, red stains flowing out across the front of their light jacket. Their arms went limp, and whatever they wished to scream faded into a whisper, a groan, then nothing.
Johana felt their blood seeping through their clothing, pouring through the precise tear her sword made through their body, their shirt, and their jacket. It was warm, like nothing else.
They were a fresh body now, and Johana held her sword through their heart for a while longer, staring right into their glassy, unresponsive eyes. She breathed in, smelling their odour, the light scent of a recent shower, opposed to the filth that remained on Johana from her fall in the river. She laughed when that thought pervaded her mind: she was more of a corpse then this actual specimen, someone that looked lively and alert even as their weight caused them to fall backwards, slipping off Johana's bloodied sword onto the cold sidewalk. They weren't bleeding as much as they had been, and the slightest tinge of pale had come over their flesh.
Johana frowned.
“A witness now lays dead, Lancer. We can rest easy; no suspicion from the regular masses will reach us.” She scoffed, rolling the body over with her foot.
He unfolded his arms, the tip of his spear dragging along the pavement, etching lines wherever he went. “This person saw us? More importantly, they saw you?”
She nodded. “If they had been in the area for even the last ten minutes, they would have caught onto the sound, or at least the visuals. A poor midnight jogger, perhaps, or a curious citizen unable to sleep at night. I imagine the priest in charge of this war has some method of muffling the sounds we all make, but there are some who slip through the cracks. That always happens.”
Taking in a deep breath, Lancer glanced away from the corpse. “Regrettable, but not unexpected. There are nearly one million people living in this area, and if even one discovers the secret war held here, then others surely will find out by word of mouth. Preserving the isolation of this Manhattan Project is of the utmost importance.”
Johana wore a clever smile. “Oh? So the knight hardly worries that his charge is murdering civilians? Shouldn't that be an offence to your vows of chivalry, oh passionate sir knight?” She laughed mockingly, staring at her Servant.
He frowned at her, disappointed with her lack of knowledge. “I may be a knight, Master, but I am not at all bound by oaths of chivalry or duty to a lord or any god. I merely have the sacred responsibility of protecting the one I am bound to, just as I was meant to do in life. I am considered a knight merely because I strive for personal vows and ideals; some knights make that ideal chivalry, but I do not. Though I try to live an honourable life, I will do whatever is necessary to ensure that my Master lives and is successful, even if her means can be far from what I would rightly recommend. Never will I disobey you, of all people.”
To her own surprise, Johana was impressed by her Servant's sole devotion. She thought of how she could manipulate this for a moment, but her thoughts then turned to some appeasement, being glad that her Lancer would accept the less glorious methods she would employ.
She patted him on the shoulder, smiling, then turned back to the body laying uselessly on the ground. With a groan she knelt down and picked the person up under their arms, propping them up as best she could.
With a wince, she pushed the figure forward using her shoulder, and they rolled forward into the river; the body was floating off, partly submerged, and the water carried them off far from the city. Johana breathed heavily, and felt her muscles getting weak; the person hadn't been heavy, but the death, the disposal, and the while situation of life and death brought images to her mind that she remembered from long ago.
There was a house, a small one-room cottage in the woods, and it was winter. The fireplace was out for the night, and a girl woke up in the bed to face the darkness.
The air was cold, colder than she'd ever known, but it didn't bother her. The boy sleeping next to her was completely unaware, his naked form covered up by fur blankets. He was warm; the girl felt his skin, and she knew that he was different from her, but yet the same.
She stood, the floorboards beneath her feet creaking, and she crept over to the dead fireplace. A log was beside it, and she tossed it past the small iron cage that kept embers from escaping and burning the house. No one would miss the little cottage, but the girl liked staying there. It was useful, and it was warm. She felt her arms; they were cold, far too cold.
A match lit up in the black night, a small, smoky flame held between the girl's fingers. The flame danced over, tossed into the fireplace. There was a crackle, kindling lit up, and the fire grew.
The girl held her hands out almost too close to the fire, judging its heat.
It was good enough, she thought, and she stood up again, her body feeling weaker than it should have been. Physical exertion wasn't her strong suit, and she knew that her body was naturally weaker than what most people were born with, but she knew that if she tried hard enough, she could become stronger, and more durable. She felt sluggish, and yet her mind was sharp. She knew what to do.
The boy was still asleep, his eyes tight shut. They had fallen asleep at the same time, but the girl knew that she couldn't drift off. The dreams had come back lately, and she sometimes felt a numbness pass through her whole body. She knew she had to act before anything like that happened to her again.
She leaned over the body, feeling his neck, and his shoulders. There was a soft white glow from her neck, and her shoulders, an outline appearing on her there like an etched drawing. Perhaps it looked like wings, or like the branches of a tree. Johana rarely got the chance to see that mark on her, her magic crest, but she felt like it was a sculpture of ice, like a rock covered in winter frost. It stung just as much as the frozen stone, too.
With an effort of will just as great as the physical strength she needed to muster, the girl picked up the boy, tearing him from his comfortable furs and placing him on the floor. He didn't wake, and the girl was glad.
Her plan was far from perfect, and for a moment she thought and fixed a few holes in it. The boy could be loud when he woke up, so she ripped off some fabric from the mattress he was on; there was enough fabric to wrap around the boy's mouth, and the girl made sure her knot was tight and the cloth was fully over the boy's face, not slipping off. Hopefully, she thought, he would feel the warmth of the fireplace and would continue to be lulled asleep.
Beside the fireplace was an iron shaft with a hooked end, meant for moving about the logs while they were aflame. It was important not to get burned so that tool was of use often, and the girl carefully picked the heavy thing up with both hands, shifting the firewood around so that the left and right sides of the flame were fed equally. That would ensure the largest flame she could make without extra fuel.
The boy twitched and groaned in his sleep, and the girl snapped around, making sure that he was unconscious. He was, and she sighed, picking the boy up under his arms, shifting him around like one of the logs she had put in the fire.
And, just like a piece of firewood, the girl tossed the boy headfirst into the flames, making sure that his face wasn't near one of the logs. Since she had moved the logs around, though, there was perfectly enough room for a child of his size. His whole body wouldn't fit, but his head definitely would, and the girl knew that that was the important part.
The fireplace was burning at a steady rate, and the boy's eyes snapped open; the moisture in them was quickly withering away, and he opened his mouth to scream. The girl was glad they had been sent to this cottage; there was no one living in the area for miles around.
The boy thrashed about, tossing up the ashes in the fireplace and knocking the wood aside; the girl immediately took hold of the heavy iron poker and stabbed it into the boy's back, putting her whole weight on the object. The boy couldn't move much after that, and he just kept screaming, the sound barely held back by the burnt length of fabric. The girl closed her eyes, but couldn't manage to keep them shut: the scene in front of her was just too much to miss, and yet she wondered why it attracted her so much.
The flames licked at the boy's hair, and clumps of it fell off and exuded the thick stench of burning; the girl didn't care, though the smoke irritated her eyes and the dulled screaming was still ringing in her ears.
Flesh split open like raw meant being cut and simmered on a stove, turning a dark red. The boy couldn't scream anymore, but the girl knew that he was still alive. He hadn't been in the fire for long enough to have died, and so she held down the iron, stabbing it deeper into his back. She couldn't risk him escaping, even if his body could barely function anymore.
She heard a hissing sound, almost like a kettle boiling over, and the girl knew that it was the clamour of the flames evaporating away any remaining liquid in the boy's body, drying him out and melting the fat he had on him. His whole form was starting to get skinny and skeletal, and the girl was suspecting that he was dead. It was a good enough guess, and she used the fireplace poker to drag the boy out of the roast, creating leverage from a higher position to better manipulate his prone, easily yielding body.
A bucket of water kept beside the fireplace was splashed on the boy's face, putting out the few lingering flames on him. His body was flipped over, and the girl saw the decayed visage he wore, like a mummified corpse caught screaming in its last moments, the expression on his face fixed to that one moment. His mouth was burnt and dried out, and he only had the little shrivelled remnant of a tongue anymore. Even if he was still conscious, he couldn't scream or make any noise. It would probably have been too painful.
The girl sighed, knowing that she would have to make sure that the boy was no longer alive. She could never risk him living, after all.
She drove the fireplace iron straight through the socket of his eye, and it lightly squished, passing through his brain and skeletal face with ease. The girl didn't want to hold that iron much long; it was heavy, and she shoved it over into the fireplace. If this place burned, it wouldn't matter. She couldn't stay there for long, anyhow.
It took effort on her behalf, but she managed to kneel down and place the boy on her back. His body was very light, with the fire having taken a lot of the weight out of his torso and head. Even the girl could manage this eventually, and she half-carried, half-dragged him out the cottage door, through the snow. The door stayed open behind her, but it didn't really matter. Maybe there was a coat inside, but for the moment she would bear the winter cold. Maybe if she endured it, then she would be able to live comfortably without clothes or warmth, making the snow her new bed.
There was a creek near the cottage; it was meant to provide water for the two, that's why the cottage was built in that area. The girl had searched the day before, and knew that this small creek fed into a larger river, and with a dip of her foot she determined that the stream was deep enough to hold a body. It was almost frozen over, but the weight of a person was enough to crack through the ice layered over the water.
The girl made her way to an outcropping of rushes by the bank, and she unceremoniously tossed the boy in.
Curiously, she touched the markings on his shoulder and neck, wondering how similar they were to her own. She closed her eyes, forcing her will as a magus onto the body's magic crest, but it wouldn't react. She felt a sharp pain echo through her head, and she immediately stopped trying to even touch the white lines on the boy's flesh.
She pushed him away with her hand, and he floated farther out into the creek, his body borne away. by the slow current.
Johana fell to her knees, her mind going blank for a moment. It pained her to move and to think, and her joints were like hot irons jammed in where her bones were supposed to be. She felt as though even taking a step would break her leg, and Lancer was soon beside her.
“Master!” he cried out, but she hushed him, and stood up. The vision was gone, and she took a deep breath.
“Lancer, we have a long night ahead of us. Why are we wasting it?” She turned around immediately, no longer facing her Servant. Though she tried her best, those thoughts were branded into her mind, burning hot and always distracting her. She hoped that the night would be kinder later, but then she remembered that she had learned long ago to never trust hope.
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Johana is the craziest Master. So, so crazy. Lancer doesn't even know what he's in for, poor guy. Though, all this makes writing Johana and Lancer really fun. I can do things with them that I could never do with other Servants and Masters.
I hope this chapter was good, and I promise that I'll put plenty of work into more of these as well as more MPII editing!
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Originally Posted by Seika
